Kingdom Come

Living What Jesus Taught

The Kingdom Come curriculum, commissioned by the Publication and Literature Committee of the Conservative Mennonite Conference, was developed by a writing committee consisting of Chris Jones, Elmer Lehman, Conrad Showalter, and Phyllis Swartz. The material was published on August 1, 2014.

Purpose Statement: When Jesus came to earth, he changed things up for the people of God–ushering in a new kingdom. Over and over in his famous Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus described these changes, he said, “It has been said . . . but I tell you . . .” In that same sermon, Jesus taught us to pray these words: Your kingdom come.

These lessons explore how to live in ways that answer this prayer. The curriculum, based on exploration of the Scripture, is multimedia in approach and appeals to various learning styles.

Synopsis of Lessons:

Fill’er Up: Covenant–Old to New

Free at Last: Righteousness–Law to Grace

Pledge of Allegiance: Identity–Nation to Church

Away from Home: World–In It but Not of It

The In-Group: Belonging–Bloodlines to Choice

Give It Up: Posture–Self-Ambition to Servanthood

Real Simple: Lifestyle–More to Less

Peace on Earth: Relationships–Enemies to Friends

Blowing in the Wind: Empowerment–Flesh to Spirit

Appetizers: Epilogue–From Earth to Heaven

The curriculum is organized into thirteen lessons that are interactive, adapted to various learning styles, are biblically based, and can be used for small groups, Sunday school, or discipleship classes. It is prepared for adults and youth and is a teacher-led (not a video-based) curriculum that contains, however, more than 70 media clips. The curriculum is rich in the sense that more material is available for each lesson than is possible to use in each lesson. Teachers review the possible activities and choose those that fit the needs of their classes. The curriculum also contains spotlights on history, word studies (on video), and stories. But most important are the texts from Scripture and the activities that surround those texts. More than 50 people made curricular contributions.